Divergence
by The Scarlett Ribbon
Summary: They die under a red sky, in mud and blood and bitter regret. Team Seven, at the end of the world...at least, until Sasuke wakes up - twelve, Sharinganless and back on his old genin team.
1. kill your heroes

_so lock all the doors_

_and put your child to rest_

_there's fire in the streets now_

_but it's quiet in your head_

* * *

><p><em>Sasuke, <em>someone said from very far away. He would have groaned, but the darkness was thick, like a quagmire, a black oblivion that sucked him down into its depths. The earth beneath him trembled. Around him, coming in and out of focus like a radio that kept losing signal, he was aware of the sound of screaming. He tried to grapple for Kusanagi, but his hand would not obey him. At the very edge of the darkness, where the screams echoed high and piercing, there was pain - sharp and unrelenting. He could feel it creeping up on him, snaking through the darkness to strike him like the serpents Orochimaru had taught him to summon.

_Sasuke, _the voice said again, somewhere just beyond his reach; high and familiar – panicked. _Sasuke, open your eyes. You have to open your eyes. _

Something in him bristled at the command. Once, a long time ago, he had taken orders from a masked man with silver hair and mismatched eyes, but for years he had been his own master. No one commanded him. Avenger's obeyed no rules and lived under no laws. When one had a goal to complete, blood to shed at any cost, laws and rules paled and turned to ash. There were no boundaries he would not cross if his vengeance lay on the other side.

"Sa…uke, please…"

The pain stalked ever closer, hovering on the verge of his consciousness and brining everything back into focus. The screaming was starting to get louder and more consistent. Tangled images flashed behind his eyelids with the onset of the pain. He remembered…

_A crackle of Chidori slicing up his arm…Naruto's figure engulfed in a radiant, golden glow…the feel of flesh tearing beneath his skin… the ground torn up and blackened with their attacks…the clash of metal nearby and the sound of screams…the smell of blood and electricity in the air…_

"Sasuke, wake up," the same girl's voice said, as the darkness receded and the pain started to settle, soothed by something warm and frantic rushing through his body. He could feel hands on his chest, small and calloused. He could taste blood at the back of his throat. His eyes pulsed like fire, sharp pain lancing through his skull.

Sasuke managed to peel his eyelids apart just enough to see a flash of pink. If he had the strength, he would have pushed Sakura away and left her there in the mud.

"Sasuke, come on, come on –_please,_" she begged him and he felt drops of something hot and wet hit his skin.

"Get…away," he ground out between his teeth, pain making him almost incoherent. He pried his eyes open, eyesight blurred as he forced himself back to consciousness. Sakura knelt over him looking, somewhat appropriately, like she'd just been through a war. Her hair was stiff and matted with blood, her face smeared with dust and grime. Seeing he was conscious, her eyes widened. The colour of her irises was not as green as he remembered.

"We have to go," she told him, urgency barely repressed in the cadence of her voice. "He's taken Naruto – we have to go, _we have to go now-"_

With what seemed like a monumental effort, Sasuke shoved her hands away and staggered to his feet, eyes burning as the Sharingan surfaced.

"Go away, Sakura."

It was all coming back to him – not just the last time they'd met, but the the battlefield, the war. All of it.

He'd lost.

Sakura looked up at him with wet, wide eyes, half-dead on her feet and so stained with blood and death, she was almost feral looking. All he could see in her face was terror, but it wasn't enough, none of it was enough anymore because _Naruto had beaten him. _

She stood on trembling legs, fists clenched, and a fierce determination rising behind her eyes. "You don't understand," she said, the sounds of the battle raging around them seeming to quiet as she spoke. Every word she said bounced off him, fell flat and meaningless at his feet. "Madara, Tobi – whoever he is – he's _taken _Naruto."

"I don't care."

There was no satisfaction in it – the way those three words made her step back, reeling. Her desperation, her fear; neither could touch him. There was a gulf between them no words could bridge and here on his side, he was curiously numb of feeling. Madara, if that was truly his name, was going to kill Naruto – Naruto who had beaten him – and it was like a circle closing and he felt nothing at all.

"But he'll die," Sakura said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. He could see it in her face that she knew there was no reaching him. She stared into his eyes pleadingly and he felt like ice. "Sasuke, _please–" _

He turned and started to limp away, blood oozing from the gash across his chest which was still not fully healed.

"Sasuke!"

He kept walking, too depleted of chakra to flash-step away. The sky was blood red around them and as darkness descended, the figures on the battlefield were reduced to flickering shadows. He almost didn't hear her run after him, only felt the ghost of a hand fist itself in the material of his shirt. He stopped and Sakura stood behind him, trembling and small, and the small part of him that wasn't completely frozen couldn't help but consider the parallel – how once she'd thrown her arms around him in a shadowy forest and made the darkness inside him recede. He was too tired, too empty to stop the recollection – but watching it, he felt curiously as though he was watching a scene from someone's else's life. The soft imprint of her hand against his back meant nothing to him anymore.

"Please," she begged him, so very quietly and for a moment it was as though no time had passed – except for the ice lodged around his heart, the sickening pool of blackness which sucked in all of who he used to be and smothered it. "Don't you understand? _They're all dead – _Ino, Kakashi, Gaara – they're all_ dead,_ Sasuke! I can't save him on my own!"

Sasuke had enough of her pleas. It was instinct to ignite the familiar spark at his fingertips, fully intending to silence her forever and be done with it – but Sakura was ready for the attack, it seemed. Her other hand lashed out as he turned and he felt the shock of her chakra blaze through his system as he unleashed the Chidori in full force. Screaming agony went up his arm and he stumbled, the blue electricity slipping free of his hold and burning him, tearing through them both in razor-like webs.

Sasuke hit the ground hard, barely aware of Sakura landing beside him. He'd forgotten how much the Chidori hurt – it hadn't turned on him for _years _now, not since those early days when he was first learning the technique under Kakashi's guidance.

_But Kakashi is dead now, _he thought numbly, trying to rise on shaking arms. His limbs spasmed rebelliously beneath him and his face was pressed into the moist earth, the smell of blood and mud mingling together. He could barely move. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sakura force herself back to her feet, her breathing heavy, as vivid, burning welts rose on her skin. His eyes narrowed as he stared at her accusingly. It wasn't just the Chidori. She'd done something to him – that shock of chakra she'd injected into his body, it'd done something that made him slow and barely responsive.

"If you're not with me, you're against me," she breathed, choking up blood and spitting it on the ground. "Don't interfere, Sasuke. I don't want to kill you."

"As if you could," he spat, still struggling against whatever she'd done to him. It was almost too much to comprehend – losing to Naruto and now, being incapacitated by _Sakura _of all people. "You're nothing – weak."

She smiled bitterly at him, hard and sharp as broken glass. He knew she was thinking of her pitiful attempt to kill him, just as he was. "That was before," she said softly, moving to stand over him, and he could hear pain in her voice, something brittle and unflinching. "Believe me, Sasuke, when I tell you this; if Naruto dies, I will have nothing left to lose."

As she turned away from him and started to follow a path of uprooted trees towards the centre of all things, Sasuke growled, fingers digging into the wet earth. There was a part of him that wondered if he should feel something, some kind of regret that it had come to this between them. Should he regret that to Sakura, he no longer counted among the things she had to lose; that to this slip of a girl who was once his friend, he was already as good as dead?

_You can't win against him, _he almost called after her as Sakura ran – ran like hell itself was chasing her. He could imagine what would happen in five, ten minutes from now. Sakura would reach the summit where the man who called himself Madara planned to extract the Nine-Tails. She would confront him and fight him...and he would kill her.

Naruto would scream at her – scream and scream for her to leave, to save herself. But she wouldn't and he would have to see every moment of her death. Her limp, lifeless body would hit the ground – eyes half-open and forever dulled. Naruto, who had beaten him, would break before he, too, was killed. There would be an end and it would be glorious, but Sasuke couldn't feel anything, other than the desire to watch.

The world would end… and Sasuke would stand by to watch it burn.

* * *

><p>When he finally regained mobility of his limbs, it was almost too late. The ground shuddered violently beneath his feet as he staggered through the trees towards the wide, open space beyond the mountainous ridge ahead – where he knew Sakura had gone. Where Naruto and Tobi would be.<p>

Cracks formed in the earth, splintering apart beneath his feet like flashes of lightning – fast and wild and unstoppable. There were screams in the distance and then… a gentle roaring filled his ears – static and white noise mingling with the cries that carried on the cool night air.

"SAKURA!"

Naruto's pained cry mingled with the reverberations of a terrible scream, both almost lost amid the roar coming from the battlefield behind him – and then his former teammates fell ominously silent.

There was enough thought left in his head to wonder which of them had just been killed. Maybe Tobi got them both in one go. Maybe both of his former teammates were dead.

Darkness was descending rapidly, but the sky yielded neither moon nor stars. When the trees parted to reveal the thick ridge at what felt like the end of the world, Sasuke stopped and took the sight in with indifferent eyes.

Tobi, his mask cracked and broken on one side, stood over the sprawled figures of two people who'd once been his friends. Sakura was utterly still, face-down on the torn earth viscous red pooling beneath her. Naruto was still alive, he could see that much – but barely. The blond was crawling along the ground to his fallen teammate, tears trailing from his blue eyes, blood spilling from the corners of his mouth. And Sasuke knew, without knowing how, that he no longer had the Nine-Tails within him. The sky burned black and red and the world shuddered at its end.

"You…killed her," Naruto gasped, face drawn and skin mottled with sweat.

For a moment, the image of his parents still bodies, collapsed on top of each other in their own cooling blood, flashed against Sasuke's eyelids and he stumbled.

Sasuke wanted to watch the world burn, but this – this was not destruction, this was not vengeance or triumph because _it doesn't matter if you beat me, you're the one who's dying, idiot. _Seeing two people whom he once loved dead and dying was nothing more than the rotting away of all the bonds he'd twisted around their necks and used to choke them. He pictured ribbons forged in sunshine, tied between them and stretched taut – dipped in blood, stained in black poison as thick as tar until all that was left were threads that hung in the cavern of his chest like cobwebs. They were thin and easy to cut down with a swipe of Kusanagi.

"You look like your father," Tobi said, "but the Uzumaki blood runs strong in you. Your mother survived the extraction, too. It was never anything personal." His voice was cool, distant. "I needed the Nine-Tails and she was its Jinchuuriki."

"Sakura..." Naruto choked, weight buckling beneath him as he reached her side. A trembling arm reached towards her blood-soaked hair.

"As for _her, _she should have known better than to interfere."

Even as the life slowly drained out of him, Naruto's gaze was indicting, almost bitter.

"You…ruined everything," Naruto accused, a harsh, wet rattle in his throat. "You killed them. My… parents… my friends…" he broke off, choking on his own blood.

Between them, his oldest friends washed the ground red. And Sasuke watched.

"Yes," Tobi said, a curious tilt to his head, like a child who stopped to watch a twitching bird that fell on the ground, pausing long enough wait for it to die. "That's war, Naruto. This – your death and all of theirs – is the price of peace."

And Naruto, with the last of his strength, spat at him.

"_You're not doing this for peace," _the blond snarled, still struggling as the hands of death stole between his ribcage and reached creeping fingers towards his heart. The beats were numbered now. Sasuke could almost hear the hitch between every desperate thump, the pauses between each pump of blood growing longer. _"You – you're evil!"_

"And you say this without ever asking _why," _Tobi told him, lifting a hand to the strange, new mask he wore. "Everyone has their motivations and you never stopped to ask mine, Naruto. Now what kind of hero does that make you? Weren't you going to tear this mask from my face?"

He sounded almost disappointed. Sasuke's eyes flickered from Naruto's pained expression, to Tobi's triumphant stance over him. He knew that he should feel something – anything – but his chest was empty, and he felt nothing at all.

"Here," Tobi murmured, hands taking the mask and lifting it from his head. Short, spiky, black hair was all Sasuke could see of him, but Naruto's dulling eyes widened.

"You -"

"This is_ me,_" Tobi said, softly, standing over Naruto like the victor of those old ninja tales his brother used to tell him. "Take the secret with you to the grave, Naruto. I'm trusting you to do that much."

The words hovered in the air like a promise. Sasuke stood unmoving as his best friend died on the red earth.

Slowly, gracefully, Tobi lifted the mask back over his face and half-turned to look towards the trees.

"So, you're still alive, Sasuke," he said and there was something in his voice that was hard to identify. "Surprising, given that you were three-quarters dead when I took Uzumaki."

His gaze swept down to the ground where Sakura lay, a cooling corpse. With his foot, Tobi rolled Sakura onto her side and Sasuke caught a glimpse of dull, green eyes before her head lolled and she faced away from him.

"What a talented, little thing," Tobi continued, amused. "It's a shame, really. If she hadn't half-killed herself bringing you back to life, she might have been able to save Naruto."

Sasuke, still struggling against the effects of whatever Sakura did to him, almost believed him.

"She always had poor judgement," he said, stepping forwards because he didn't know what else to do. They were dead and he'd watched the life drain out of them. "She thought I would help her."

This time, Tobi laughed. It was a strange and chilling sound and Sasuke frowned ever-so-slightly.

"Oh, Sasuke," he said. "How little you understand women. How little you understand _anything _at all."

Through the haze of physical pain and the strange, sterile numbness that encased him, he perceived that he was being laughed at. Mocked even.

A simmering anger began to surface, somewhere deep down, but he didn't have time to react. He didn't have time to do anything at all.

Even though he had the Sharingan and saw it coming, whatever Sakura had done to him – combined with the brutal pounding he'd received from Naruto – slowed him down so much, he couldn't avoid it.

Sasuke was fast, but Tobi was faster and the slice of chakra that carved through his ribs made him think of gilded birdcages and the snapping sound that wishbones made.

The first blow sent him reeling backwards, but he didn't fall. The second came somewhere from behind, a sudden strike that burst his lung and forcing blood up – thick and bitter and choking.

The last blow, he never even saw. Sasuke was on the ground, blinking blood out of his eyes and watching the world go dark before he knew what was happening.

"Did you really think," Tobi drawled, crouching over him, mismatched eyes boring down, "that this would end any other way? Let me tell you something, Sasuke. This, all of this – it was never about _revenge_. It was never about _you._"

A disjointed drumbeat pounded in his head, because after all this time – _all this time –_ it was the same old tune, wasn't it? They fed him lie after lie and Sasuke bought them all.

He could barely see – half his ribcage was torn away, he was certain, but he sought that black, burning space inside him, the source of the hatred he carried deep, deep down, and felt vindictive satisfaction as the Mangekyo bled to life. Susanoo erupted around him, his best – his most effective – weapon, but a hand shot through the open cavity of his chest and _squeezed. _

Susanoo died as quickly as it had come. A scream erupted in his throat and split the night air apart and Sasuke realised that, yes, it was him screaming. It was over before he'd time to fully comprehend what was happening – he couldn't breathe and the world was growing dim at the edges. Darkness rushed into his vision like a living thing.

"You were my most powerful pawn, Sasuke," Tobi continued in a low voice. "And I thank you for that. I couldn't have done it without you. But it's over now. You've played your part to the letter." He sighed, a puzzling sound. Almost – disappointed. "I have no more use for you."

Sasuke had been too stupid, too gullible to see the truth. Now, he only thought of the end. And when it came – in all honesty, when it came, that inescapable blackness that rushed through his veins and obliterated everything – death was almost a relief

His head lolled to the side as Tobi's presence disappeared. The sky was red blood and death – an apocalypse of screams on the air. Everything was blurring, but his eyes found them…sprawled together on the ground, fingers inches from each other as they lay in their own blood. Vivid colours, pink and gold. The blackness swelled and expanded, like ink blots crawling across paper, but the colours stayed until the last.

Sakura and Naruto were the last things Sasuke saw as he died.

* * *

><p>The darkness was thick and everlasting.<p>

Except, it wasn't.

_Sasuke, _said a voice, high and clear. Hearing his name felt like rising from the depths of a deep, dark ocean in which he'd already drowned.

"Sasuke," the voice said again and was that gentle rocking the result of hands on his arms? He could feel skin on his. "Wake up."

Sasuke's eyes flew open. Sakura knelt above him, eyes bright and concerned – that precise and unique shade of green he so vividly remembered – the way they were when she was twelve years old.

And then his eyes widened and a scream worked itself up in his throat because – because she _was. _

* * *

><p><em>sky black and blue<em>

_blue turned to red_

_there's quiet in the streets now_

_but it's screaming in your head_

* * *

><p><strong>An: So as you guys can see, this is not the promised sequel to TBE. This is a new fic entirely and I'm really excited to be writing it! It's been sitting in the back of my head for a while now, so to finally have the time it needs to devote to it, makes me really happy. **

**I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I'm loving writing it! **

**Please be extra good, and review :) **

**AN IMPORTANT NOTICE: I'm actually horrified by this, but I was in such a rush to finally post this chapter that I forgot to mention one very important fact: this chapter was not only edited, but made a thousand times better by the fabulous _Sakura's Unicorn. _So thanks, C - for not only being such a great pen pal, but also for seeing into my brain and understanding what I'm trying to say. **


	2. let's get lost

_Give me a reason not to keep sleeping_

_when I'm awake I feel like I am dreaming_

_the world is shrinking, every street's the same thing_

_I can't reach that far, but there are people disappearing_

* * *

><p>"GET AWAY FROM ME!"<p>

The scream that erupted from his chest was a terrible, blood-curdling thing that pierced the night air like a knife. Sakura scrambled away from him in alarm, falling backwards onto the ground with wide, frightened eyes.

"Get away – you're dead, you're dead - this isn't real -"

"Please – Sasuke-kun, please, please, stop screaming – stop - "

Her hair was long, her frame skinny. There was something helpless in the way she pleaded with him to calm down, but it did not reassure him. Sakura was twelve and small and – and _dead, _damn it. He'd seen her lifeless body. This was – this was a dream, it had to be a dream, because _he – _because Sasuke, he was dead, too – Tobi killed him and none of this was real –

"Oi, bastard," Naruto's voice, sleep-slurred and irritated, sounded from nearby. "Shut up."

He watched in horror as a tousled head of blond hair poked itself up and out of a sleeping bag. Naruto, twelve and boisterous – that loser he remembered from the days of Team Seven and petty squabbles – glared at him. Kakashi, he could see, was slumped against a tree a little further away, that infernal orange book over his face.

"You're scaring Sakura-chan," Naruto added, blue-eyed and so, so _young. _Sasuke swallowed with difficulty and snapped his jaw shut. The night air was cool and sweet smelling, the sky above their heads littered with stars. He could still smell the remains of a campfire, the ashy scent of leaves mingling with that of summer, could feel the soft, green grass beneath his palms.

It felt real.

"This is an illusion," he said, but the words came out garbled, almost strangled sounding. "You're not – this. It's not real!"

The more the truth spilled past his lips, the paler and more concerned his former teammates grew, but Sasuke didn't care. He took off running – running as fast as he could and it wasn't disappearing, the world wasn't disappearing and why was he moving so slowly?

"Sasuke!"

"Sasuke-kun, come back!"

"You better get back here, bastard!"

Their shouts called after him into the dark, but he kept running. Every _in _and _out _of air through his lungs was like a fist slamming against everything he knew to be true.

_It's an illusion, _he told himself, still running blindly in the dark – the black shapes of trees and shrubbery closing around him. _Just an illusion; it has to be. _

The damp grass beneath his feet, the smell of the night air, the sounds of a forest alive around him – none of it could be real. None of it could be true because he could still see that blood-red sky, could still hear Naruto's last, rattling breath.

Sasuke could still remember Tobi turning Sakura's lifeless body with his foot, could still remember the way it had felt to bleed out in the mud with half his ribcage torn clean away. Instinctively, he shuddered to a stop and looked down at his torso – his small, skinny, and completely _whole _body.

"It's an illusion," he whispered, still panicked – reeling from the sight and sound and sensation around him. A thought, clear and sharp, emerged through the chaos.

_Sharingan. _

He reached for the power of his clan – the tell-tale burn that preceded its surfacing bubbled in the depths of his bloodstream – but nothing happened. His eyes stayed as they were; dark and wild and _normal. _

He recoiled from himself in horror. The Sharingan – the Sharingan was _gone. _How could it be gone? How could it just disappear like that? Sasuke closed his eyes and searched for that once-elusive place deep inside himself – somewhere between fear and elation…

And came up against a wall.

He pushed futilely against it and stabbing pain rocketed through his skull, making his knees tremble. Sasuke gasped and started forwards again, moving because the alternative was to drown under the torrent of emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

Eyesight blurred, he only stopped when a glimmering surface appeared out of nowhere and cold water lapped around his ankles. The stream trickled quietly through the night and Sasuke looked, unwillingly, down at his reflection.

A child looked back at him – dark haired, wild eyed and sickly pale. No matter how hard he stared at his reflection it didn't change and the Sharingan didn't surface. He looked twelve and half-mad – frail, puny, _weak…_

His hands moved to form the seal that would release him from the genjutsu.

"Kai," he commanded, staring fixedly at the rippling surface of the water and his own softly wavering reflection. Nothing happened.

"KAI!"

Slowly, his hands dropped. A glint of metal caught his eye; a tiny glimpse of kunai handle peeking through a small gap in his leg holster. He reached for it, fingers shaking, and raised it high into the air. There was a strange rushing sound and a spark of light flew off the blade. Pain exploded in his thigh.

Sasuke looked down at the blood pulsing from his leg, hot and wet and copious, and then at his surroundings which had not changed. The world spun on its axis as he bled out and then the bottom dropped out of everything.

* * *

><p>The first thing he was aware of was muffled voices nearby. The darkness hugged him close and he felt warm, enclosed. Flickering light danced against the back of his eyelids and he smelt fire.<p>

"That stupid bastard," someone said weakly. "Sensei…is he going to die?"

Someone – a very feminine sounding someone – was crying.

"No, Naruto; Sasuke will be just fine. Sakura…please stop crying."

"S-sorry," the girl's voice hiccupped. "It's j-just…"

"Does your wrist still hurt?"

Silence. Still struggling into wakefulness, Sasuke could only dimly comprehend that she must've given a non-verbal answer of some kind. His head pounded and all the world rocked gently around his ears. The cage around him, he started to realise, was a sleeping bag. His leg throbbed painfully with every pulse of blood that moved through his body.

"What happened?" Kakashi asked, sounding bemused. "Everything was fine, when I woke you up for your watch."

"I don't know," Sakura said, sounding shaken. "I went to wake him up like I was supposed to Sensei and…and h-he just —"

"The guy lost it," Naruto interrupted, sounding honestly baffled. "The guy's a nutcase, Kakashi-sensei. Can't we get someone else on our team? Look at Sakura-chan's wrist!"

"It's not his fault, Naruto! I just – I fell on it wrong, that's all."

"He was screaming like a lunatic!"

"What did he say?" The voice of his sensei, quiet and very serious, swallowed up Naruto's indignant babble. A short, tense silence followed.

"He kept screaming that we weren't real," Sakura told him at last, very quietly. "I thought he was having a nightmare or something."

"Sasuke is a genius," Kakashi said at last. "But even prodigies get nightmares sometimes. Be kind, Sakura. And you, Naruto. Don't pester him over it in the morning. In fact…"

"What is it, Sensei?"

"It'd probably be better if we pretend this never happened."

When his teammates started to protest, Kakashi added, "Think how you'd feel in Sasuke's shoes. Would you want everyone reminding you of that?"

Silence.

"That's what I thought." His sensei sounded almost sad. "Now, go to bed. I'll wake you in a few hours."

There was a faint shuffling and the night quieted. Sasuke allowed himself to be pulled back into the warm, comforting darkness.

* * *

><p>When he finally woke properly, it was to a small, unfamiliar bedroom in which he was the only occupant. Golden sunlight streamed softly onto a patch of wooden floor, and for a moment he simply lay in his bedding on the floor, dazed and uncomprehending. Sasuke's entire body felt stiff and sluggish — his mind even more so.<p>

_Where am I? _

Somewhere outside, he could hear birdsong and he struggled into a sitting position, utterly disorientated by his surroundings. The movement caused unexpected agony in his thigh – throwing the crisp bed sheets back, Sasuke saw the bandages. He remembered his manic attempt to dispel what he'd fully believed was genjutsu – and how it apparently hadn't worked.

A cold chill went down his back, despite the comforting warmth of the room. What if – his mind flinched away from the possibility, his hands clenching into fists – but _what if this wasn't a genjutsu at all? _

Sasuke looked down at his hands – the small, pale hands of the child he'd once been. There'd never been a genjutsu he couldn't break before.

_Am I dead then? _It seemed likely. Tobi tearing through him like he was nothing more than paper…_tha_t he remembered well.

"_It's over now. You've played your part to the letter; I have no more use for you."_

When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the wet mud beneath him, see the red sky looming over him, hear the screams of people dying on the air….

A sudden rattling noise made him jump. The door slid open to reveal the two people he'd watched die before his eyes. Sakura beamed at him, a tea tray held aloft between her thin, little girl arms, and behind her, Naruto sulked.

"Welcome back, sleeping beauty," the blond grouched, and Sasuke just stared at him- at both of them. Now that he was fully awake and somewhat prepared for what he was seeing, he was able to process the impossible with a little more coherency. Naruto was pretty much exactly as he remembered him; short, blond and obnoxious. Even the heinous, orange tracksuit was the same.

He looked to Sakura, examining her with the same calculating scrutiny. Yes, this was the little girl he remembered; thin-boned and fragile looking – not some flat-eyed kunoichi spitting up blood on the battlefield. Seeing the contrast between who Sakura was and who she would grow to be made him uncomfortable.

Sakura set the tray carefully down on the floor beside him as Sasuke stilled dangerously, a sudden idea striking him. What if…?

The sound of tea being poured yanked him out of his thoughts before they could go any further. Smiling, she handed him a cup of softly steaming tea, as though nothing was wrong – as though she hadn't just died in the stinking mud, as though the world hadn't ended, as though Sasuke hadn't tried to kill her _three times_. It was enough to make his stomach turn.

Her fingers brushed against his as she handed him the tea, and the skin-on-skin contact sent a jolt of awareness through him. Her hands were warm. It frightened him a little, that she felt so real. It made it harder to believe that everything was a dream.

"Here," she said, voice soft and feminine. "Kakashi-sensei said you should drink it."

She looked so young, he noted, numbly accepting the tea because he didn't know what else to do. Her innocence – their…their _oblivious _smiles and actions made him feel sick.

"I want tea, Sakura-chan!"

She pursed her lips at him. "Go wash your hands!"

"You've been out in the rice paddies, too!" the blond pointed out indignantly, the beginnings of a pout forming on his mouth.

"Yes, but I've already washed up," Sakura told him somewhat smugly. "It's good manners, Naruto."

As Sasuke watched in sickened silence, she leant over the tray to pour another two cups of tea and Naruto stomped off somewhere into the depths of the house. All he could think was that she looked so breakable and he could crush her so easily – could reach out and smash her head against the floor before she'd have time to scream.

"You're not drinking," she said suddenly, snapping him away from the image of her skull breaking beneath his fingers. His mouth and throat were dry; he said nothing in reply. Part of him was still convinced that he was dreaming, or stuck in a genjutsu.

Part of him was still convinced that they were all dead.

"I bet you're thirsty. I'm always thirsty after sleeping. That's why I always keep a glass of water on my nightstand. But I guess that's harder on missions and you've been asleep for a lot longer than usual and-"

"Shut up!" Sasuke finally snapped, cutting through her nervous babble and immediately silencing her. The thudding in his ears almost blocked out the smashing sound of china. Glaring, hands clenched into fists, he tried to stand – only for the pain in his thigh to send him sprawling to his knees. He felt aggravatingly vulnerable – _weak – _weaker than he'd been in years.

He knelt there on the wooden floor, breathing hard and fast, eyes burning with his shame and confusion.

"Just…shut up."

Sakura was silent and still, but he could feel her hurt radiating out from beneath her skin across the room. He didn't want to look at her.

"Kakashi-sensei said he'd come talk to you later," she said at last, voice wavering and he heard the gentle tap of her cup being set down on the tray. He didn't look up as she got quietly to her feet, her dress rustling as she moved - a strange and long-forgotten sound that echoed down the years.

On the battlefield, she'd made no noise at all when she moved.

"Careful of the shards," Sakura told him softly as she let herself out of the room, the door sliding shut behind her. Breathing harshly from his outburst, he glanced at the floor to find himself kneeling amid pieces of broken china.

Sasuke stared at them for a long time, the world spinning around his ears. He felt completely disconnected from everything, thrown so far backwards that nothing made sense anymore.

Tobi… the war… had…had any of that even happened? Was any of it _real_?

He scoffed and lashed out at the broken china with his hand, leaning back and falling amidst the bed sheets. Of course it was real. He remembered everything; the feel of Naruto's Rasengan punching a hole through his stomach, the sound of his own agonised scream ripping the air apart, Itachi's smile as he slid to the ground …

"Damn it." The word hissed between his teeth, confusion and rage churning together and struggling to the surface from the dark, bottomless pit that had filled him since his brother died in front of him.

Those memories and the accompanying dead space inside him was all he had left. Sasuke clung to the hatred, forced himself to remember every wrong against him and his family, for fear that the confusion would win out and turn his entire world upside down. Because – because if this was real, if he was twelve and Sakura and Naruto were alive, did that mean that none it had happened yet?

Did that mean none of it had ever really happened _at all_?

"Would you care to tell me why your teammate is crying outside?" Kakashi's voice said, interrupting Sasuke's thoughts and startling him so badly he was moving to throw a kunai in his old sensei's direction before he realised that he was weaponless.

"You seem a little…jumpy," his former teacher observed, raising an eyebrow. "Bad dreams, or is there something you need to tell me, Sasuke?"

For a frightening moment, he felt hysterical laughter bubbling up in his throat. When had he ever told Kakashi _anything_? His old teacher had preached and lectured, but never listened and years after the fact, Sasuke saw no reason to start.

"Isn't there something _you _need to tell _me_?" was all he said in response, because Konoha was full of nothing but liars and traitors, and Kakashi was one of them.

The silver-haired man recoiled slightly, sole visible eye wide with surprise and something else that Sasuke couldn't read. That was familiar. He'd never been able to get a good read on his genin-sensei. He was lackadaisical, nonchalant, too secretive to be relied upon. Sasuke had secretly admired him, once. Just for a short time. That Sharingan made him feel less alone. Now he knew that his former teacher was nothing more than a pretender to his clan's legacy.

He would _always _be alone.

As if he could guess his thoughts, Kakashi said, "I don't know what's troubling you, Sasuke, but pushing people away is only going to make it worse. You have the chance to form some really special bonds here, bonds that last whole lifetimes. You only ever get one genin team."

_I know, _he felt like saying. _Mine chased me to the ends of the earth and it didn't make a difference. _

But he didn't. Instead he glowered in silence, and Kakashi sighed.

"Just think about what I said," he told him. "Get to know your teammates a little. If you can, stop making Sakura cry. You're never going to get anywhere without a proper team, and if I recall, you have two certain goals you want to fulfil."

Immediately, Sasuke went completely, utterly still, his mind sent reeling back to that first meeting between Team Seven, when they declared their likes, dislikes, and dreams to the summer sky.

And he'd said he wanted to kill a certain man, meant it with every cell in his body.

_Itachi…_

His brother's face flickered in front of his eyelids, an image nothing could disperse. That familiar, regretful look, the blood that poured from the corners of his mouth, the whispered, "I'm sorry Sasuke. There won't be a next time."

_I take it back! _he wanted to scream. _I take it back! I'd take it all back! _But he could not speak around the obstruction in his throat.

That was what really got to him, sent him spiralling into a darkness of mind that nothing could pull him out of. All those wasted years he'd spent hating his brother, believing all those lies…he'd devoted himself to killing the brother who loved him all along – and Itachi had known it.

Kakashi, taking his silence as a concession to his wishes, reached out and ruffled his hair. Sasuke was too lost in the desperate anguish of his mind to react.

"You only live once, Sasuke," the silver-haired man said, before disappearing in a puff of smoke, as was his habit.

In the silence, it was those words that echoed over and over. You only lived once, but Sasuke had already had his time.

Hadn't he?

* * *

><p><em>How can I pretend to know my own mind<em>

_the more questions I ask, the more I find_

_I'm lost at home, out of time_

_the coins I flip land on their side_

* * *

><p><strong>notes: once again my thanks go to my glorious beta, <em>Sakura's Unicorn <em>for trawling through pages of my writing and somehow making it decent. **

**notes2: I forgot to mention that the lyrics at the start and finish of last chapter were taken from the song Hey Now by _Augustana. _this chapter, the lyrics are taken from Lost at Home by _The Automatic. _**

**notes3: and lastly, thank you so much my lovely readers for the phenomenal response you gave me last chapter. 53 reviews for the opening chapter alone is...well, it's a first for me. so thank you very much! you all have some very interesting theories and i'd love to know what your thoughts are again :)**


	3. square one

**dedication: **_**Sakura's Unicorn, **_**for giving me a good kick up the pants and rescuing whatever writing talent I have. **

* * *

><p><em>Is there anybody out there who<em>

_Is lost and hurt and lonely too_

_Are they bleeding all your colours into one?_

* * *

><p>The sun was just passing its highest point in the cloudless, blue sky when the heat got to be too much for them. The voices of his genin teammates rang out clear as day across the still air.<p>

"Naruto! You're doing it all wrong! Look, you're supposed to push the seedlings right into the mud so they don't fall over."

"But Sakura-chaaaaaan! It's too hot to push every single seed in," Naruto whined, scrunching his face up. The tip of his nose was already burnt from the sun.

"Just do it, or Kakashi-sensei will make us do it all again."

"I hate this stupid mission. And why does bastard-Sasuke get to sit in the shade _all day?_"

"Shhh!" Sakura hissed, looking surreptitiously in Sasuke's direction. "Just… get back to work."

_Good advice for you both, _he thought, wincing as he shifted beneath the eucalyptus tree that sheltered him from the sun – his wounded leg throbbed painfully every time he moved. He'd forgotten how irritatingly lazy Naruto was as a child, and how bossy Sakura could be.

He'd forgotten a lot of things.

Absently, his mind drifted back over the missions he and his team had been assigned as genin; all the gardens they'd weeded and escaped cats they'd chased after. All of it was so monotonously boring, until that fateful mission to the Land of Waves where his Sharingan had activated. After years of training to make himself the best in his class, he'd finally had a real taste of the power Itachi always effortlessly wielded. He remembered how his eyes had suddenly started to pick up Haku's movements, until, finally, he even managed to intercept the senbon meant for his idiotic teammate.

That was the place where he'd first become strong.

_And I need to be again, _he thought, looking down at his body in irritation. He was so horribly weak as a twelve year old, so damn defenceless. Without his Sharingan he was vulnerable, and Sasuke hated it.

_Maybe it's all in your head; just a genjutsu that makes you believe you're powerless. _It was a pitiful argument; he'd never come across a genjutsu he couldn't break out of before. Even Tsukuyomi hadn't been powerful enough to hold him. And besides, he felt hungry when he didn't eat; when he cut himself, he bled. He felt pain. He slept. None of it had the feel of a genjutsu.

So, was it real? Had he really done the impossible, the absurd, and travelled back in time? Immediately, he thought of Itachi and all his lectures about the nature of illusion and reality. Sasuke knew the truth now. If this was all real, then surely – and his heart started to pound at the thought – he could do it right this time. If this was the do-over he'd burned for with the intensity of a thousand suns, then none of the awful mistakes he'd made ever needed happen. They _wouldn't _happen.

"Hey, can we take a break soon?" Naruto's voice broke through his reverie, loud and insistent. His trousers and sleeves were rolled up; wet mud was slowly crusting around both his and Sakura's ankles where they stood in the rice paddies. His female teammate wiped a muddy hand across her brow, clearly tiring.

"I am pretty hungry," Sakura admitted, as though it was a crime. Sasuke snorted, remembering the way she talked about hair products and dieting as though they were meant to impress him somehow.

"You mean there's no _ramen?_!"

"Idiot," Sasuke muttered, before he could help himself. He watched moodily as the other two ran towards the house they were staying in, Sakura screeching at Naruto to wash up first.

"Sakura-chaaaaaan. We'll just get dirty again after lunch!"

She ignored the blond and turned to face Sasuke again, eyes tentative but not afraid. "Do you want me to bring your bento out, too, Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn."

She smiled at him, just a quiet curling of her mouth, like she was trying not to anger or upset him. And he realised that in her eyes, he was still her flawless Sasuke-kun, the one she didn't know at all. "Okay," she said, and disappeared down the path to the house.

He leaned back against the tree, relishing the first instance of peace and quiet he'd had all day, when someone blocked the sunlight. A not-very-tall someone.

"_What_?" Sasuke eventually ground out between gritted teeth. It was hard to think of anything with Naruto standing there scowling at him – alive and so _fucking _stupid.

The blond had never understood, not once, but now he knew nothing. He knew _nothing _and it was back to square one and Sasuke couldn't stand to go through that all again, the childish rivalry he'd outgrown so long ago.

"You can't beat me," the blond said, blue eyes losing the childish light they exuded. Suddenly he was back on the battlefield and Naruto - tall, unbeatable, _hero - _was looking down at him. "Face it, Sasuke-bastard, I'm way stronger than you are. And soon the whole world will know, believe it!"

He ran off before Sasuke could kill him all over again, because those words – so carelessly declared by a loudmouth idiot – made him sick to his stomach, made his blood boil in his veins. _It didn't happen, _he told himself. _It didn't. _

But it had. Naruto Uzumaki grew up to thrash him within an inch of his life, and leave him lying in the mud with his shame and his hatred – the wreckage of his life and all he stood for scattered around him like so much broken glass.

"_You can't beat me, Sasuke."_

* * *

><p>The silence that lingered between his three genin brats was so thick, Kakashi thought he could probably break his nose on it. Hiding resolutely behind <em>Icha Icha Paradise <em>and wincing at every overly-loud turning of the page_, _he snuck a peek at the situation at the dinner table.

The rich smell of spices rose on spiralling steam from the rice, but for once, nobody seemed very interested in eating. Opposite him, Sasuke had barely eaten anything; instead, he stared at his plate as though the few bites he'd eaten had turned into ashes in his mouth. Naruto scowled at the dark-haired boy with his arms crossed, and next to Kakashi, Sakura played with her food, eyes downcast and unfocused.

It was very difficult not to bash his head against the table. Despite their rocky start to the bell-test, he'd thought they were making some progress as a team. Certainly, they'd demonstrated they had the potential to function as a unit that day…and yet, it was like they'd not only gone back to square one, they'd flown past it to square zero and were resolutely stuck there.

Could a nightmare really change the dynamics that much? He'd seen the report on the massacre, so he had no doubt that Sasuke's nightmare had been particularly awful, but for it to have that much power over him? It made him wonder just how much support the village had given him in the aftermath of that bloodbath. He'd thought a talk could help snap the boy out of it, but clearly his words had made little impact.

"Sasuke-kun? Is something wrong?"

"No," Sasuke answered tersely, barely looking up. Kakashi noticed his grip on the chopsticks tightening until he was sure the utensils would soon snap.

"But you're not eating-"

Kakashi saw the malevolent glare and swiftly intervened. _"Sakura." _

His pink-haired student fell silent immediately, glancing at him uncertainly. He saw the tell-tale shine in her eyes and the table surface suddenly looked twice as appealing. Fearsome shinobi Kakashi might be, but shove a crying pre-teen girl in front of him and he would rather have his _Icha Icha _series stolen for the day that have to deal with it.

But of course, stopping the conversation before Sasuke could lose his temper and damage the fragile bonds they were forming even more, only set Naruto off.

"She was only asking a question, Sensei! You guys are so rude all the time, and all she's done is worry about the stupid bastard!"

_What did I do to deserve this? _he wondered, fighting the urge to bury his face in his hands. Two problem-kids and a sensitive little girl prone to weeping…was this the universe's cosmic revenge on him for being so foul to Rin and Obito when they were a team? If they'd given his sensei even half the headache creeping up on him now, it was a small miracle Minato hadn't dumped them off on someone else immediately.

_Sensei, you had the patience of a saint. _

It was Sakura's voice who tuned him back in from his woes.

"It's okay, Naruto. Just drop it."

"But-"

The blond was clearly flummoxed, his annoyance deflating like a rapidly emptying balloon. Sakura didn't look up though, and Sasuke just continued to glower at the wall as though everyone in the room had personally wronged him. It was odd how he managed to look so alone, even as he sat among them at the table. What disappointed Kakashi was the knowledge that Sasuke isolated himself willingly from his teammates, maybe from _everyone. _The reports from the Academy indicated he had one of the lowest scores in teamwork, after all. Genius or not, he was holding them back.

When the silence got to be too much, Sakura politely excused herself. Within moments, Naruto was chasing after her, and Sasuke was storming in the opposite direction, out into the night.

With a sigh, Kakashi let _Icha Icha Paradise _fall from his hands and contemplated simply locking them all up in a room together until they worked through this sudden block.

"This is going to be harder than I thought."

* * *

><p>As his teammates slept obliviously on, Sasuke stared out into the night. There was no moon, and it made not only the night, but the world, darker.<p>

_Itachi is somewhere out there, _the thought came inexorable and irresistible, making his heart lurch unevenly inside his chest. He could leave right now, couldn't he? Leave Team Seven and Konoha behind and track down his brother – he'd done it before, after all. The window was open. His teammates were sunk so deep in sleep they showed no signs of stirring, Naruto snoring exuberantly, and Sakura unnervingly still. They were so young. So…clueless. Ignorant.

Sasuke hated them.

Sasuke envied them.

If he left now, there would be no Team Seven, not like there was. The course of history would change.

_And not only would Konoha send shinobi to track, retrieve and eventually kill you if you resisted, _a voice piped up in his head, _you will have no way to find Itachi at all. _

His hands clenched into fists, knuckles cracking quietly. What would happen if he left? He might never develop the Sharingan at all. He might never get back the sort of power he used to command.

And he had no idea where to find Itachi, did he? Leaving, no matter how tempting, provided no certainties. Whereas if he stayed….

_Our paths will eventually cross. _

He stared longingly out the window for the space of another few hundred heartbeats, before turning back to his abandoned bedroll. The time when Itachi would appear in Konoha couldn't come too soon.

* * *

><p>The next morning dawned soft and warm, the world made hazy and almost dreamlike.<p>

Kakashi woke them before the first rays even peered above the horizon, and clumsily they dressed and assembled in the dark.

"Nghhhh," Naruto said, as they waited for their sensei outside, beneath the same eucalyptus tree Sasuke had spent the last three days resting beneath. His eyes were squinty and his head kept drooping onto Sakura's shoulder. Sasuke expected her to screech and throw him off, but she just stood there looking half-asleep and letting the sunrise wash over her, lighting her features to yellow-gold.

"Well," Kakashi appeared with little aplomb, as usual. "You three certainly look refreshed from a good night's sleep."

Naruto responded by sliding down the tree with a great, rasping snore.

_What an idiot. _After seeing the blond grow up to become oh-so serious – a _hero _– it was unsettling to see him revert to the short, moronic kid from his childhood memories.

"Wake him up, Sakura."

Sleepily, she prodded Naruto in the side with her toe.

"I don' wanna…"

But she was persistent, and after what seemed like forever, he was on his feet looking put-upon, and they were ready to leave. Sasuke kept his eyes on the path and tried not to think about the fact that he was willingly returning to the village that stole everything from him. He'd sworn to himself that the only time he'd ever go back was to watch the place burn, and here he was, powerless, unable to do anything to make all those stupid, sheep-like people feel the pain that he felt.

"Sakura-chan, do you have any food?" Naruto's question brought Sasuke back to the here and now.

"I told you to eat breakfast while you had the chance!" she sighed.

"But I wasn't hungry then," he whined.

"Ugh. Okay, you can have the cereal bar in my pack."

He couldn't help but watch them, eyes glued to the symbols stitched onto their clothing, feeling oddly wrong-footed. It was strange seeing them walk together, side-by-side, without Sakura yelling at the blond. She was almost a head taller than him - and that was strange, too. At some point in time, he'd grown used to the idea of a Naruto who was tall enough to look him in the eyes and a Sakura who only came up to his shoulder. Sasuke couldn't say when it'd happened that he started thinking of them as teenagers, and not the children he remembered sleeping beside.

"_If Naruto dies, I will have nothing left to lose." _

Her voice came back to him suddenly, and he wondered when Naruto had become someone she cared about – if this, them walking together, was the start of something that he saw only in the aftermath, when their bodies lay side by side in the mud.

Maybe their dying there, on that cliff side, was inevitable from the start.

"Why so quiet, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked from behind him.

"I'm tired," he lied, and realised it sounded an awful lot like the complaint of a petulant child.

"Hmmm. It seems that none of you slept well last night. It reminds me of my own genin days, you know."

_I don't care, _he thought venomously, but Sakura had obviously overheard, and turned, her expression curious.

"What was your team like, Sensei?" she asked.

If he didn't know better, he would have thought the question saddened Kakashi. But his one visible eye crinkled in a smile, a hand reaching up to ruffle his hair thoughtfully.

"We were certainly a handful for _my _sensei," he began. "At first, all we did was argue. I used to hate the overnight missions because of all the snoring."

Despite himself, Sasuke found himself listening attentively along with his teammates. Kakashi had never talked about himself, except for that one time when he revealed that everyone he loved was already dead. Did that include the genin teammates about whom he was so fondly reminiscing?

"Did you ever want to stuff socks in their mouths to muffle it?" Sakura glanced at Naruto with a mischievous gleam in her green eyes. The blond was affronted.

"I don't snore, Sakura-chan!"

"Do too," she argued, suppressing giggles with difficulty.

_Snoring is a polite word for it, _Sasuke snorted, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he realised that they'd dropped back to walk with him and Kakashi.

"You snore, too!" Naruto rounded on him accusatorily. "And you fidget all the time."

"I do not."

"Actually," Sakura sounded apologetic and a little tentative, "you kind of do."

Sasuke scowled at the ground. If he snored, surely someone would have told him by now. Taka had certainly never complained.

_Karin wouldn't though, _he thought. _She was too busy trying to sleep with me. And Suigetsu was too wary of pissing me off. Juugo was probably just too polite to mention it. _

"HA!" Naruto crowed. "Not so perfect now, are you, Sasuke?!"

His response was a flat, unamused look at his teammates. "I don't snore, moron."

Kakashi's hand settled briefly on his shoulder. "There's no shame in it, Sasuke. I once knew a very fine lady who snored like a foghorn."

After a fresh round of giggling on his idiotic teammate's behalf, Sakura recovered enough to ask, "So what happened with you and your team, sensei? Did you ever stop fighting?"

Kakashi's smile was slower, less cheerful. Sasuke noticed, but he wasn't sure the others did. They were just children after all.

"You know, Sakura…when it really mattered, we did. We were three very different kids, who became a real team."

There was a momentary lull in conversation, in which Sasuke tried not to look at the rest of Team Seven. He couldn't help but recall a time – just the space of a few months, really – when they were almost a fully functioning team. He wondered briefly, how it all would have turned out if he'd stayed in Konoha, if he hadn't defected to Orochimaru.

But it made him uncomfortable, as it always had on those few occasions he allowed his mind to wander down that track.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Naruto skipping obliviously on, but Sakura's expression was pensive.

Naruto's stomach chose that moment to rumble thunderously.

"Hungry, are we?" Kakashi asked sardonically and the blond pouted.

"I didn't have time for breakfast, Kakashi-sensei!"

Sakura stopped to fish in her pack for the promised breakfast bar. "Here," she called, tossing it to him.

"You're the best, Sakura-chan!" He tore the wrapper off and started munching away with enthusiasm. There was a part of Sasuke that was surprised he wasn't turning his nose up at it in favour of his ramen fixation.

_It's unnatural, _he thought, recalling all the times he'd been unfortunate enough to witness the blond slurping at his favourite noodles. There was one memorable occasion when Naruto persuaded him and Sakura to stop at _Ichiraku's _with him for their evening meal; the shorter boy didn't stop beaming the entire time. There'd been fireflies and the soft glow of the paper lanterns illuminating the night, and the air was so warm; a perfect summer evening in Konoha – the lie he'd spent so long believing in.

"Can we stop at that cute teashop again?" Sakura asked, looking hopefully up at their sensei with shining, green eyes, and interrupting the slow churn of anger in Sasuke's chest with her smile.

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully and looked around at them all. "If we get there by noon, maybe I'll let you three treat your old sensei to lunch."

"Ya – hey, we treated you last time! Kakashi-sensei!"

"Maybe this time I'll try the tempura," the silver-haired man mused, ignoring Sakura and Naruto's indignant protests.

They did stop at the teahouse. They stopped to camp for the night, too, and Sasuke couldn't help but stay awake staring at the stars when he was supposed to be sleeping.

When morning came, they packed up and started the last leg of their journey.

"I'm gonna go to Ichiraku's for breakfast!" Naruto shouted, pumping his fist in the air as they drew closer to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. "Man, their ramen is the _best!_"

"You need to take a bath first," Sakura grumped, walking along beside him. "I can't wait to get home so I can wash my hair properly."

Sasuke couldn't wait to get away from them, but something horribly like dread seethed in his stomach. But why should he dread returning? It was Konoha who had betrayed him! It was the village that was in the wrong, so why did he feel his feet dragging with every step?

The feeling intensified as his eyes began to pick out familiar landmarks, long forgotten in his pursuit of vengeance; a tall sakura tree in the centre of a small clearing, a fork in the road that led down to one of the small hamlets near the village, a rocky ledge on the horizon that curved around the village and formed the Hokage mountain.

His heart skipped a few beats, lurched sickeningly, in a way that reminded him of stumbling on even ground – tripping over illusions and dull nothings.

_What am I doing? What am I _doing? He kept moving forwards as though caught in some horrible, bizarre dream – and even though he'd chosen it, it didn't make returning hurt any less, didn't make it any less of a betrayal to his goals and his ghosts and all the choices that never were, even though he was the one who'd been betrayed.

"Almost there!" Sakura beamed, perking up as the towering gates came into view, unchanged from his memories. The gates grew bigger, looming over him as Sasuke kept walking, feeling numb from the neck down.

"Welcome back, Sasuke," Kakashi said, as they passed over that thin line that he crossed four years ago, never to return.

He looked around at the familiar landscape, the rooftops and trees and children laughing, and barely suppressed the urge to be violently sick.

Already, he wished he'd run when he'd had the chance.

* * *

><p><em>And if you've come undone<em>

_As if you've been run through_

_Some catapult it fired at you_

_You wonder if your chance will ever come_

_Or if you're stuck in square one_

* * *

><p><strong>notes: I'm so sorry, this has taken me three attempts to get right and I hope it meets your expectations. (But I've already started the next chapter, so hopefully you won't have to wait too long this time)<strong>

**notes2: How am I only just discovering the wonder that is **_**Young Justice? **_

**notes3: Lyrics borrowed from Coldplay's **_**Square One. **_

**107 reviews? Guys, you are amazing and wonderful and so kind to me. Thanks for all your support! I'd love to hear any theories you have about what's coming next :)**


	4. then you can begin again

**chapter title: then you can begin again**

**dedication: Sara, for early morning texts about porn, "purple rocket cannons" and the old women with cats. **

* * *

><p><em>You say "Is this a war?"<em>

_Hardly, and then you hit a wall_

_Honestly, you want to know but you can't_

_I believe, I want to believe, in anything_

* * *

><p>They'd barely taken two steps when Sakura stopped in her tracks, surprise written all over her face.<p>

Sasuke's lip curled. She was so unguarded with her feelings; they were open to anyone and everyone, but she didn't seem to realise. Not yet. Sasuke wondered when it was that the other Sakura, the real Sakura, understood that her emotions were a weapon that could be used against her. He wondered if she ever cared, either way.

"Dad!"

Sasuke looked on in disgust as the pink-haired girl rushed past him, a child running – all harsh footsteps and the rustling material. The man who swept her into his massive arms looked nothing like her. Not really. He had dull pink hair styled erratically around his head and he wore the simple clothes of a civilian.

"There you are, Sakura-chan! I've been keeping a look out all morning for your return."

Sasuke snuck a glance at Naruto and Kakashi, both of whom seemed taken aback. The blond was watching the scene with a mix of curiosity and yearning – and Sasuke remembered, of course, that parental affection was something Naruto had never known.

_Why did you turn out so…self-righteous with a childhood like that? _The villagers had treated him like a pariah for most of his life, so caught up in fear of the nine-tails that it would have served them right if he'd turned against them. If he, too, had decided on revenge.

He turned back to Sakura, only to see that she was giving her father a stern look. "Are you hiding from Mum because you ate all her chocolates again?"

Guiltily, the man patted her head. "Can't a father just miss his only daughter?"

With those words the black feelings began to come back. His father would never have come to greet him like this, but he wondered if his mother would have waited for him at the gates as Sakura's father did, if she'd ever been given the chance. If she'd been allowed to live…

She'd always loved it when Itachi came home from his missions.

"Are these your teammates, then?"

Sakura's father, it seemed, had just become aware of their existence and had decided to approach them. Up close, Sasuke noticed that he had blue eyes, nothing like Sakura's bright, iridescent green.

Sakura trailed along behind him, looking small and sheepish as she made the introductions. "This is my father, Haruno Kizashi. Dad, meet-"

"Ah, this must be Kakashi-sensei," he said, stepping forwards and shaking their sensei's hand vigorously. Stood side-by-side, he realised that Sakura's father was a deceptively massive man; his shoulders were broad and his torso thick, like the trunk of a tree. He wouldn't have thought a mere civilian could look so strong.

"Yes…"Sasuke would have smirked at Kakashi's obvious bemusement if he wasn't feeling so angry. Was he just supposed to stand here and wait to make pleasantries with this ignorant man, one of the hundreds of clueless civilians who got to leave in peace because his family was dead? Was he supposed to smile like a good little boy, knowing that Haruno Kizashi's daughter would die in mud and in vain? More than anything, he wanted to run back out the gate and keep running until he found himself in his seventeen-year-old body, strong, powerful and _gone. _

By now, Kizashi had moved on to Naruto, who looked almost…shy. "I'm guessing you're Uzumaki Naruto?"

"Uh…"

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Kizashi said, shaking the blond's hand solemnly. It seemed to take everyone but Sakura by surprise – for years, the villagers looked down on Naruto. From Sakura's attitude, Sasuke had surmised that her parents felt the same, but that didn't seem to be the case.

"And so you, of course, must be Uchiha Sasuke." He didn't take the proffered hand and after an awkward moment, Sakura's father dropped it to his side and straightened with a jovial chuckle.

"Well, well, you're the strong, silent type, eh? Why am I not surprised?" He threw his daughter a mischievous look; a dull flush crept up over Sakura's face.

"Dad-"

"I've heard a lot about you all from Sakura-chan. It's nice to finally put faces to the names she brings up over dinner every day."

Just the idea made him taste bitterness in his mouth, sharp and hard to swallow. Sasuke could imagine it without trying; Sakura with her perfect, little family and her perfect, little life, telling her parents about her messed-up teammates as her mother dished up the evening meal. They probably felt _sorry _for him, safe as they were from loneliness, never knowing what it was to taste true horror in the back of their throats.

Sakura looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her up. Right now, Sasuke wished it would. _"Dad," _she ground out between her teeth and he started to laugh again, a deep, rumbling chuckle that grated on Sasuke's nerves.

"Alright, alright," he said, smiling good-naturedly at them all. "I can see I'm embarrassing you, boo. It was a pleasure meeting you all. Sakura I'll wait for you by the bookstore" he added, strolling off towards the shops.

"_Boo?_" Naruto demanded, the moment her father was out of earshot. His eyes were wide and incredulous. Sakura put her hands over her face, long, pink hair swinging forwards to hide what little of her features weren't already covered.

"Shut up." Her voice was muffled by her hands. "It's – it's just a nickname. I don't know." She stopped talking abruptly, as if she was about to say more and only just cut the words off in time.

Maybe once, the flash of her thoughts in her eyes would have aggravated him. Too many times as a child, he'd found himself wondering about the things she thought but didn't say.

Now he watched, a curious mix of furious and numb, as she awkwardly lowered her hands away from her face.

"Anyway," she said, "I'd – I'd better go. I'm supposed to help out in the shop this afternoon."

She scurried off, abashed – and a little absurd, he thought. Just a stupid little girl who worried about the silly things that would never leave the small circle of her existence, worried as if they would end the world.

"Well," Kakashi said, sounding bored. "That was that. Be good boys and eat your vegetables tonight." He vanished in the customary puff of smoke. He expected Naruto to scowl, but the blond was staring in the direction Sakura had run off to with the strangest expression in his eyes. He saw it for just a moment, that look of a hollow loneliness, a need so great it threatened to drown the blue of his irises.

Then Naruto turned to him with a shit-eating grin and the strange expression vanished, hidden safely away behind a bravado he'd forgotten the idiot possessed.

"Who'd eat _vegetables_? Ick." He shuddered, overdramatic and childish. Sasuke wondered how much of everything Naruto did was an act.

"Shut up." The words came out of his mouth in a snarl. They were down to two now and the thought filled him with dread, butterflies and hurricanes churning in his bloodstream.

"Touchy, touchy," Naruto grinned. "I shoulda guessed a bastard like you would love your greens."

He ran off before Sasuke could stop him – did he want to stop him? - before he could say something like _stop, don't go, don't leave me alone in this village – _

Swallowing against the sharp lump in his throat, he shifted his gaze back to the street. Konoha carried on around him, busy, bustling, and he felt like just one more ghost hiding in its shadows for all the attention anyone paid him.

It was horrible how it all looked exactly the same as he remembered.

_What now? _The question came reluctantly, because he didn't want to think or feel anything ever again, but being here was like having acid in his veins instead of blood. The past ate away at him, corrosive and burning.

But he had nothing to siphon it off with, anymore – no _Chidori_, or Sharingan to lash out with, to make it hurt less. His feet carried him away, treading old paths almost, but not quite forgotten. Sasuke walked with inward-looking eyes until his feet found the familiar ground of the Uchiha district.

Where else could he go in a village full of blood?

* * *

><p>True to her word, Sakura did help out in her parents shop that afternoon. It was a familiar thing, sitting behind the counter and watching the occasional customer drift around the shop floor with sharp eyes and a smile ready to please. She remembered running home from the Academy every afternoon from the age of eight, knowing it was unofficially part of the deal. Sakura had known since she was four years old that what she wanted, was to be a kunoichi. To this day, her mother was not impressed by the ambition; Mebuki wanted her to take over the shop one day, to marry a good man and have lots of children. She tried to compromise by training for both futures – and only succeeded in doing neither particularly well.<p>

"Sakura! Dinner's going to be ready in five minutes!" Mebuki called up the stairs. The shop was on the ground floor, their house spread out over the two storeys on top of it.

"Okay," she called back, snuggling up in her favourite blue bathrobe and running a brush through her hair. It felt so good to get the mud of the fields off properly, at last. Not that it hadn't been fun – in a way it reminded her of childhood and playgrounds and boys throwing mud at each other. She couldn't seem to help it, though, that at the end of the day all she wanted was a hot bath to make her feel…well, like a _girl _again.

When she ran away from her teammates – Sasuke with his angry, burn-you-up eyes, and Naruto with his sudden shyness – it was like switching lives with another girl. Her afternoon in the shop was much more pleasant than the gruelling D-rank missions she took with her genin team and not for the first time, the contrast in her two lives made her wonder why she was persisting with this dream of becoming a kunoichi, when it was so clear that she did not have the upbringing for it.

When the afternoon came to a close and she finally got to retreat upstairs to the promise of hot water and shampoo, it felt like entering heaven. She soaked in the bath for so long that her fingers went deliciously pruney; only the smell a stew pot on the stove tempted her out. The scent of it seeped up the stairs, even now.

Humming, she thought she might polish her nails after dinner and then sink into the new book Kizashi picked up for her while she was away. Reading in bed was one of her favourite things.

"Sakura!"

She dropped the hairbrush and shuffled onto the landing, down the stairs. "Coming!"

Entering the kitchen, she slipped into her usual chair and let her mother dish up.

"So, Sakura-chan, tell us about your mission." It was always Kizashi who took interest in her ninja duties, who asked about every test and helped her memorise all the rules in the handbook until she could recite them by heart.

Chew, swallow; she reached for the glass of water and gulped it down to stall for time. Normally, she didn't have a problem sharing her experiences, but… "It was…fun. I guess."

She told them about the rice paddies and baking sun, but decided to keep Sasuke's screams and frightening fits of temper to herself. She found herself alarmed by his behaviour, intimidated by him in a way she wasn't before. In the back of her mind, she carried the memory of his crazed eyes when she woke him for his watch, how he screamed at her as if she was part of a terrible nightmare.

"Those boys of yours seem nice," her father said amiably.

_They're not my boys, _she wanted to say and it tasted a little sour, because they weren't even really a team, were they? She hadn't missed the point of Kakashi-sensei's little anecdote about his team, how it paralleled them so clearly.

"Oh, you met them, did you?" Mebuki seemed genuinely interested, but then again, she'd approved so thoroughly of Ino when they were still friends. She had her nosy face on. "You should invite them over for dinner sometime, Sakura."

She pursed her lips, chewing carefully. It was hard to pick the right words; Sakura felt like she'd been edging her way through minefields lately. "I…don't think that would be the…the best idea," she said.

Naruto would come, she thought, feeling guilty – but Sasuke would probably take it entirely the wrong way. He'd call her _annoying _again. It hurt, but she knew she was awful that day. All that talk about Naruto being wild because he had no parents was just her showing off, trying to look clever in front of him. Afterwards, she realised it was a horrible thing to say. Her parents definitely would have scolded her for it, if they knew. Whenever she was around Sasuke, she always seemed to say or do the wrong thing – she just wanted so much for him to notice her, to _like _her because she'd always, always liked him.

"Why? Do they not like you, Sakura?" her mother asked, hitting rather too close to the mark. She swallowed back the lump in her throat with difficulty, hating how much the question stung, and faked a smile.

"O-of course they do. We're just very different people," she added. "And Naruto and Sasuke fight a lot, so…"

"Boys always do," her mother said dismissively. "I wouldn't worry about it, Sakura-chan. You just do your best."

"Thanks, Mum." She smiled again, hoping neither of her parents could see the watering of her eyes.

Her mother meant to make her feel better, she knew…but that night, as she lay in bed, she couldn't help but wonder once again, why she was persisting with this childish dream. The unexpected bitterness she felt surprised her, as she questioned what, exactly, her 'best' was.

* * *

><p>Being in the Uchiha district again was literally returning to the scene of his nightmares. Sasuke wandered the derelict, deserted streets and remembered. He remembered Itachi's voice, as he commanded him to run, to live in the most cowardly way – the single tear that escape his brothers eye to glisten in the moonlight…the only clue to his remorse.<p>

"Why?" The words tumbled out of his mouth, pleading and hysterical. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Why did he go through with the massacre, instead of warning them? How could he let the village push him into committing such an atrocity against his own family, his own flesh and blood?

Why did he kill everyone else, including their mother and father, but leave Sasuke alive? Everyone he loved was murdered and Itachi just…just left him _alone. _

"_You knew so much about your brother and yet you knew nothing at all," _Tobi's voice echoed back at him, mocking and cruel. Perhaps what hurt most was that he knew it was true; he'd both hero-worshipped and hated Itachi in turn, but he'd never understood him.

Those early memories, before the bloodshed and the encounters afterwards, haunted Sasuke as vividly as the massacre itself. How easily he'd been manipulated all his life, into believing what others told him. Itachi the villain, who broke his arm, who tried to steal his eyes and killed everyone he loved…those memories were easy to recall, because he'd spent so long dwelling on them, feeding them to the fire that churned inside him. What came back to him now, were the forgotten things…Itachi carrying him home on his back, smiling and laughing…Itachi refusing a mission to attend Sasuke's opening ceremony at the Academy, openly defying their father….Itachi letting Sasuke crawl into his bed at night, when the nightmares came…and suddenly Sasuke found himself running towards the house he grew up in, for the first time in _years. _As he reached out past the decaying police tape – swiping it aside as easily as if it was nothing more than cobweb – his heart beat faster and faster, part of him convinced that when he opened the door –

Inside it was cold, dark and silent. Everything had been left as it was on that last day; nin-sandals were lined up neatly beside the door as though his parents had only just kicked their shoes off and in the kitchen, the table was set for a dinner that never happened. It took more strength than he knew he had to walk past them and down the hall to the room he'd not entered since the massacre; the door he'd left resolutely closed because he couldn't bear to go in.

He pushed the door open. "Ita-"

His brother's name died on his lips; the bedroom was empty. Like the rest of the house, it remained untouched by the years, save for dust. The bedcovers were rumpled. Papers were scattered across Itachi's desk and a few even on the floor. His clothes still hung in the wardrobe, or were neatly folded in the drawers. A Chunin's tanto hung on the wall.

_No. _Stubborn refusal made him search everything – he pulled the room apart, frantically going through every drawer, every cupboard, every loose sheet of paper on the desk, in the hopes of unearthing some_ meaning, _some explanation that could reconcile the ruin of their lives.

Only when the last paper slipped through his fingers to the floor, did he finally stop, inhaling the faint scent of his brother that still lingered. He felt like he was visiting the room of a dead person. Signs of life remained, but the room yielded nothing to help him understand why Itachi had chosen the village over the clan.

What he wanted was answers. But there was nothing in this house, this room, but ghosts.

* * *

><p>It was strange how easily he fell into a routine; breakfast, train, mission, dinner, sleep. And then Sasuke started over again the next day. In his current state, there was nothing he could do other than bide his time – no matter how much it went against the grain.<p>

All his missions were D-rank; chasing cats and pulling weeds for old ladies. He shut his senses to the world, to the blooming of a Konoha spring that went on around him.

_Everything will change soon, _he told himself, a week after he'd returned to the village. Today, Team Seven was cutting the grass for an elderly couple and the monotony of it drove him mad. _Wait for the change. Just endure, Sasuke. _

He was good at enduring, after all. It was what he'd done all through his years in Sound.

"No, Naruto! You're going to hit the flowerbeds!" Sakura's screech cut through the bubble he'd been living in for days; he turned just in time to see the blond crash into the fence, destroying the lovingly-tended flowers in his path. The lawnmower spluttered and died; Naruto landed on his backside hard.

Sakura dropped her rake and ran to help, casting worried glances back towards the house.

"Are you okay?" she demanded, helping the idiot to his feet. Naruto grumbled and kicked the lawnmower, looking as bad- tempered as Sasuke felt.

"This thing is a hunk of junk!"

Sasuke turned back to the pile of grass he was raking, inwardly wondering why they'd let Naruto have the job of actually using the lawnmower; it was obvious from the first that he'd make a mess of it. Not that he cared, anyway. Naruto could ruin all the gardens in Konoha for all Sasuke was prepared to do about it.

"Hey, what're you doing, Sakura-chan?"

"Seeing if any of these plants are salvageable," she snapped. From the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw her kneeling on the grass in front of the flower beds, hair swinging loose over her thin shoulders.

"It wasn't _my _fault," Naruto protested. "It was the stupid machine!"

"Never mind," she said, getting to her feet and biting her lip. "They'll dock our pay for sure."

"_WHAT?!" _

"Keep it down," Sasuke snapped at them, before he could stop himself. Their voices were beginning to give him a headache. Briefly, he considered just walking away and leaving them to their mess. It was very tempting. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that doing so would give him an abundance of free time. Right now, in this village that existed on a foundation of his family's blood, that was the _last _thing he needed.

It was at that precise moment, however, that old lady Ume ventured out onto her veranda to see how they were getting on. He watched as the realisation suddenly crashed in on her, wrinkled features creasing in anger, fists balling despite probable arthritis.

"YOU HORRIBLE CHILDREN. LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY GARDEN!"

Sakura bowed hastily in supplication, grabbing Naruto by the scruff of his neck and pulling him down with her.

"I'm so sorry," she apologised profusely, hands pressed together. "There was an accident with the lawnmower-"

"But my flowers!" the old woman screeched, clearly not appeased. She noticed Sasuke, standing off to the side.

Sakura shot him a blazing look that suggested he was highly stupid; obviously he was supposed to bow, too. Sasuke did no such thing – instead he dropped the rake and walked away. Let them deal with this mess. It had nothing to do with him.

"Sasuke!" He heard Sakura calling after him and Naruto's loud protests of innocence, but he didn't stop. He would rather train than spend another minute wasting his time on some stupid D-rank assignment.

* * *

><p>He didn't shout. That was the worst thing about it, Sakura thought. She'd have preferred yelling to the visible air of disappointment coming off Kakashi-sensei in waves, as he surveyed the ruined garden with his sole visible eye.<p>

Though she was making a real effort to be patient with Naruto, and to watch her mouth around Sasuke, nothing seemed to work. Everything still fell to shambles. Sasuke was more distant and dismissive than ever and Naruto…Naruto was a walking disaster. As a team, they couldn't even handle simple D-ranks without something going wrong.

"And he just left?" her teacher asked, barely looking at them.

"Yeah! He ran off and left us in this mess!" Naruto was still fuming about their other teammate's 'betrayal'. "He doesn't deserve to be on this team, Sensei!"

_Ino would laugh if she could see us, _she thought, scuffing the toe of her nin-sandals on the ground. She'd seen her former best friend around the village with _her _teammates, and from what Sakura could tell, Team 10 seemed to be having none of the same troubles. They even had _barbeque _together after every mission.

"We could have fixed it," she said, speaking up at last. "I was going to – I know where to get replacement flowers and I would have gone, but Sasuke-kun, he didn't…"

_He doesn't want anything to do with you, _inner-Sakura spoke up abruptly, deepening the gloom settling on her shoulders. _He doesn't want to know either of you. _

She knew it was true, but the sting of it still made her want to cry. The tears were already burning at the backs of her eyes.

"It was an accident," Naruto added, blond head bowed. "The old lady didn't need to complain. We can do better, I promise, Kakashi-sensei! Just please don't send us back to the Academy!"

Her heart lurched sickeningly; it hadn't even occurred to Sakura that being dropped from the programme was a possibility. Wide eyed, she looked up at her silver-haired sensei pleadingly. If she got dropped, she would be stuck in the shop for the rest of her life. It would be easy and comfortable and it wasn't what she wanted _at all. _

"I'm not sending you back to the Academy," Kakashi said at last, looking down at them both sternly. "You will both pay for the replacement flowers out of your own pocket and apologise to your client. Report to the Hokage's office tomorrow at ten o'clock."

It was a clear dismissal, but before he could vanish in a puff of smoke as was his custom, Naruto blurted out, "What about Sasuke-bastard?"

A single black eye fixed on them. Sakura and Naruto gulped in unison. "Let me worry about Sasuke," he said and disappeared.

In the silence, they looked at each other with identical expressions of dread. And then a smile spread across the blonds face as he started to cackle.

"He's _so _going to get it."

Sakura didn't care. Her mother had told her to do her best…and that was what she was going to do. Maybe if she tried her absolute hardest, Naruto and Sasuke would be inspired to do the same…maybe then, they could finally be a real team.

She wanted that more than anything.

* * *

><p><em>Can I come to your house? <em>

_I'm caught in the ropes and the wires_

_the sun settles hard in the south_

_Winter lives in my bones_

_It's all I've ever known_

* * *

><p><strong>notes: lyrics borrowed from 'Winter Bones' by Stars. <strong>

**notes2: thanks as always go to **_**Sakura's Unicorn **_**for her amazing editing skills. C, I don't know what I'd do without you and your crazy blue marker. **

**notes3: don't know when I'll next have time to update…university is back in session and suddenly I HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO. I'll try my best though. ALSO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SAKURA'S POV? THOUGHTS?**

**notes4: follow me at thechandelierofbones for update information, sneak peeks…and if you really want you can bombard me with your thoughts concerning the most recent manga chapters :) **

**DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW (you guys were shockingly remiss last chapter. There are 254 of you following this story…do me the courtesy of actually speaking up when I update, because now I know who you silent lurkers are.)**


	5. raise the stakes

**chapter title: raise the stakes**

**dedication: **_**Sakura's Unicorn, **_**for sound advice on how to deal with weeping, self-centred housemates. also, for endless support and encouragement getting through this chapter. thanks, C! **

* * *

><p><em>And oh, poor Atlas<em>

_the world's a beast of a burden_

_you've been holding on a long time_

* * *

><p>As the setting sun turned the Hokage's office a brilliant orange-gold, Kakashi shifted, watching Hiruzen puff thoughtfully on his favourite pipe. He'd just laid before the Hokage the issue with his troublesome, little genin team. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura had only been under his supervision for a matter of weeks and he was already beyond the point of exasperation.<p>

"I don't want to let any of them down," he admitted, eyeing the panoramic view beyond the window, the unchanging scenery of the village at the heart of everything he did. "But I don't know what to do."

It was a blow to his pride to acknowledge his shortcomings – Kakashi liked to think he was a man capable of dealing with his problems alone, quietly and efficiently – but where Sasuke was concerned, he was beginning to suspect he was out his depth as a mentor.

"Well," the Hokage spoke at last, interrupting his melancholy thoughts. "It certainly seems you have a problem on your hands."

"They aren't bonding properly. Sakura is level-headed enough, but Naruto is all over the place, and Sasuke – he just doesn't have any interest in his teammates or the missions."

It was the Uchiha who worried him the most, but if he spent all his time and energy trying to reach the boy, to give him the stability he so desperately needed, what would become of the other two? Naruto needed his time and attention, too. And though Sakura did not need parental guidance from him, she certainly needed his training.

_I'm already failing them, _he realised. _Just like I failed Rin and Obito…_

Not for the first time, he wondered what advice Minato-sensei would give him if he was still alive.

_The short time that Sensei was Hokage feels like a distant dream. _

He tried to picture him sat in the chair Hiruzen now occupied, but the memory was blurred around the edges.

"Sasuke – he had a nightmare," Kakashi continued. "That's where the trouble started. Before that night his attitude showed signs of improvement, however small."

"And it's got worse since you returned to Konoha?" the Hokage asked.

"Yes. Is it possible he's suffering from post-traumatic stress?" _Even after all this time? _

It shouldn't surprise him, really. He knew a thing or two about being haunted by bad memories. At night, he still dreamt of Rin, her startled expression as he put his hand through her chest.

Sarutobi pulled the pipe from his mouth and surveyed him thoughtfully. "It is," he allowed. "But I think, perhaps, a little time away from Konoha will help pinpoint the problem. Sasuke's never been the sort of boy who's inclined to talk to strangers about his feelings."

Kakashi grunted quietly in agreement.

_It's a good suggestion,_ he thought. Sasuke had to come to terms with whatever it was that was troubling him and he had a feeling no one had ever really been able to help – that maybe no one had ever even tried.

_What do you say to a kid who lives through something like that? _he wondered. _How could anyone even begin to understand just how deep such damage can go?_

"I'll get Iruka to find you a lengthy, C-rank mission that'll take you out of the village. I put your team together for a reason, Kakashi. Your kids need each other…even if they don't realise it yet."

* * *

><p>He'd been in the Uchiha District for, perhaps, three hours when Kakashi finally turned up. Sasuke was sitting on the porch of his family home, where he used to wait for Itachi at the close of the day, kicking up dust with his the toe of his sandal. In the deathly quiet, it was impossible to forget just who he was and what the Leaf had done to him – how he didn't belong in this village full of liars. But the emptiness of Itachi's room reminded him just how much he needed answers.<p>

"Sasuke," his sensei said, appearing seemingly from nowhere. He'd always had a habit of doing that, of trying to unsettle people in small ways.

Sasuke grunted.

"May I sit?" Kakashi asked, indicating the porch with a flicker of his one visible eye. He seemed to take Sasuke's silence for acquiescence, and settled himself beside him, elbows resting on his knees so that they mirrored each other. He didn't even take out his disgusting orange book.

"Why did you walk out today?" he asked, watching him intently, but not critically.

_That's new, _Sasuke realised, feeling distinctly thrown. He was used to – almost immune – to a Kakashi who only ever lectured him on the importance of teammates and the destructive nature of vengeance.

_He talked, but he never listened. _

"I don't know," Sasuke muttered, having no idea how to answer, whether he even wanted to answer at all. "It was pointless."

"Most D-ranks are. They're just a stepping stone, Sasuke. We all have to endure them to reach our goals."

_I've already endured them, _he almost said, _and all they paved the way to was emptiness and a false sense of accomplishment built on lies. _

When he didn't reply, his sensei sighed. "It's not easy for you here and I'm truly sorry about that. But you can't just walk out on your teammates."

Couldn't he? Sasuke remembered a moonlit night and the gates looming up from out of the dark. He remembered a bridge, and a valley, and the intention, both times, to kill. So he said nothing, merely hunched forward in mutinous silence and kept kicking at the ground with the toes of his sandals. Later, perhaps, he would go and practise his kunai throwing.

Kakashi sighed again and got to his feet. "Report to the Hokage tomorrow, first thing," he said, sounding suddenly tired.

"That's it?"

Kakashi looked at him flatly. "That's it. Show up, or you're off the team. As much as these D-ranks seem beneath you, I'm sure you won't get any more satisfaction out of life as a civilian."

* * *

><p>She didn't want to get out of bed when morning came, but Sakura forced herself up and into the bathroom anyway. Downstairs, she could hear her father moving around in the kitchen, as in her parents' bedroom, her mother rolled over, taking a rare lie-in. It was peaceful – familiar and safe.<p>

She had no idea what the Hokage was going to say to them. After how her team had behaved, it was safe to say that she was dreading it.

She showered quickly, brushed her teeth, and tried to make herself look more like a genin and less like a little girl playing at being one.

_What if he disbands us? _she thought, biting down hard on her lip to stop her stomach from churning queasily. The thought of being sent back to the Academy – or worse, being trapped in the civilian life her mother wanted for her – was enough to make her feel sick.

She wished she could talk to Ino…

"No, I don't," she murmured, taken aback by an impulse which had become foreign to her since she declared their rivalry to the world. How could she be expected to find her own feet if she spent her entire life hiding in Ino's magnanimous shadow?

Shaking the errant thought away, she gave up on trying to make herself look anything other than what she was – a stupid little girl. _Who would ever take me seriously as a kunoichi with hair like mine, anyway?_

"Sakura-chan, do you want some breakfast?"

"No, thanks," she squeaked, heading for the front door. With her stomach churning the way it was, Sakura doubted she'd be able to eat a bite. She just wanted to get this meeting over with.

Her father sent her a disapproving look over the top of the newspaper. "Make sure you eat a big lunch, then."

Nodding, she slipped out the house and into the warm, spring morning. The sun was just beginning to peek over the rooftops, but the air was pleasant on her skin. Sometimes, she thought she liked the village best like this, when it was just stirring, the streets still quiet and calm as the sun slowly rose.

Which was odd, really, because Sakura had never been a fan of early mornings. Every time she trudged to the Academy she'd been half-asleep, wishing she was still in bed, oblivious to her surroundings.

She was the first one of her team to reach the Hokage Palace. On any other day she would have amused herself with the thought of Naruto oversleeping, but she could only imagine how the Hokage would take that on top of their dismal performance of late.

_What if they don't even show up? _Sakura wondered, dread filling her stomach. _What if I just wait outside the office all day and no one else comes?_

She was just starting to _really _panic when she spotted a dark-haired figure approaching, hands in his pockets, a familiar dark scowl on his face. The sigh of relief that escaped her was involuntary, but luckily Sasuke wasn't close enough to hear it.

"G-good morning," Sakura said quietly as he drew closer. For a moment, she thought he was going to walk right past her into the building, but he stopped abruptly just outside the doors and turned to face her. In her years at the Academy she'd grown used to his apathetic expressions, but today, like he always seemed to these days, Sasuke looked angry about something.

_Angry and tired, _she thought before she could stop herself. His eyes were dark and shadowed. She could see rage in them, barely suppressed. In the warm morning air, she shivered at the intensity there.

Had he really been apathetic back in their classroom days? Or was it just now that she was learning to see a little of what was going on in his head, in his entrancing and frightening eyes? Maybe all that time she was looking at him, she wasn't really seeing anything but a pretty boy who'd once been kind to her.

"Morning," he grunted at last, spitting the word out between his teeth as if it was reluctant to escape. She thought of him thrashing around as she woke him on that mission, his mingled terror and revulsion as he shoved her away, his scream at her to shut up when he lay injured and immobilised in bed.

As usual, Sakura had no idea what to say to him. However, unlike usual, she thought it better not to try. _Sasuke will talk to me if he wants to, right? _She just knew that the moment she opened her mouth, she'd end up saying something stupid.

_I don't want Sasuke to think I'm stupid, or unkind or – or annoying, even if I am all of these things._

But the silence that sprang up between them was thick and heavy, pressing down on her with the weight of a thousand invisible hands.

_It never used to be this hard, did it?_ Not so long ago being in Sasuke's presence had been a joy, and being alone with him, well, that had been the stuff her best daydreams were made of.

"The idiot is late," Sasuke muttered at last, breaking the uncomfortable silence. Sakura wasn't sure if he was talking to her or himself.

She debated whether or not to answer, but a shout interrupted her before she could reach a decision. She and Sasuke glanced up simultaneously to see their teammate hurrying towards them, panicked and still groggy-looking.

Hands on her hips, she frowned at Naruto as he skidded to a stop in front of her, his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. "You overslept, didn't you?"

"My stupid alarm clock broke! It's not _my _fault, Sakura-chan!"

"Nothing ever is," she muttered dryly, turning on her heel and marching into the Palace. "Let's get this over and done with."

The boys followed her in – Naruto grumbling under his breath and Sasuke, she could tell without looking around, scowling in silence. She crossed her fingers and prayed they wouldn't get in another argument before they reached the Hokage's office.

Surprisingly, Kakashi was already waiting for them inside – the first time as their sensei he'd ever been on time for anything.

_It really must be serious, _she thought, swallowing as he looked down at them solemnly. It was amazing how someone with so little of their face showing could somehow manage to look so utterly disappointed.

Behind her, Naruto gulped.

"In," Kakashi commanded in a voice that brooked no argument. Sakura stepped into the Hokage's office feeling like she was facing her doom.

* * *

><p>Sasuke didn't listen to a word Sarutobi said. He had the distinct impression that the Hokage was delivering a meaningless lecture on the nature of teamwork, but he'd heard this same old tune before and it hadn't meant anything the first time around.<p>

"…our bonds which make us different from the other villages, which make us strong. Teamwork makes a strong genin team, and a strong _shinobi…_"

The sneer was difficult to hide. Hadn't he seen the proof of how bonds held people back? Sasuke cut his own years ago and gained the sort of power that other shinobi could only dream of.

_And how did that end? _a voice whispered snidely in the back of his head. _A fist through your chest, wasn't it? The mighty Uchiha Sasuke, beaten by a blond idiot, and then killed by a pretender to your clan's name. _

"…Kakashi tells me that you are failing as a team, but I have confidence that, in the right situation, you three can make this work…"

But Sakura and Naruto, who placed such a high value on their so-called friendship with him, their tattered, ruined bonds – they'd died too. They died at Tobi's feet, stupid little children who never got it into their heads to stop chasing him, _that he didn't want to be chased. _

On his left, Naruto was fidgeting restlessly, shifting his weight from foot to foot as though he was bored. Or eager to prove the Sandaime right, more likely.

_But you don't, _Sasuke thought venomously. _You don't save the world. You don't get to be Hokage. You don't win._

"…sometimes it takes time to overcome boundaries – time and patience." The Hokage was still speaking in that slow, dry way of his which made him sound like some kindly grandfather. Sakura, on his right, was drinking in every word. Sasuke wanted to shake her, to scream in her face not to listen because it was all lies, everything. The same man who listed trust and teamwork as virtues upon which to build their careers, ruled over a village steeped in blood and secrets. And maybe – maybe Danzou was telling the truth, maybe Sarutobi didn't sign the orders which ended Sasuke's entire world in the course of a single night, but he stood idly by and let it happen. And he let Sasuke dedicate his life to revenging himself on a brother who – who…

His hands were clenched into fists, fingernails tearing into the skin of his palms. What would happen if he just killed the Sandaime, right now? Just slit his face open with the kunai in his holster. Just a few swift movements which were as effortless for him as breathing. Inhale. Exhale. One more responsible party dead.

He didn't realise how lost he was in the decision until a hand settled tentatively on his shoulder, a pretty, pink mouth shaping the vowels of his name.

"Sasuke?"

"I'm fine," he said, aware of everyone looking at him strangely, the Hokage watching him shrewdly with the pipe frozen halfway to his mouth.

"Excellent," the Sandaime said, snapping his teammates' attention back to him. "No delays in setting off then."

_What? _A quick glance at Naruto and Sakura showed that they weren't sure what he was talking about either, but where Sasuke was confused, they looked respectively eager and anxious.

"We have a mission," Kakashi pronounced, lacking his usual bored drawl. For the first time, Sasuke noticed he didn't have that hideous orange book on him. "Since you three are so behind on your teamwork, I've asked for an extensive mission in order to rectify those particular…shortcomings."

"Alright! Where are we going, old man? It's A-rank, right?" Naruto was as excitable as ever. Sasuke wanted to hit him. "Tell me it's exciting!"

"It's a C-rank, escort mission. A little more difficult than you should be handling right now, but I believe it's _the right situation _for a team like yours to start functioning properly."

The Hokage's words stirred a certain familiarity, a ghost of a memory rising to the surface…of bridges, and senbon, the place where he'd first died….

_Could it be? _he wondered, heart palpitating with excitement.

"Your mission will take you to the Land of Waves," the Hokage told them, "escorting a bridge-builder from petty thieves and criminals on the road."

The smirk that threatened to break free was a black thing, he could feel it, but Sasuke didn't care. They were going to the Land of Waves at last, and soon he'd take that first crucial step to get his power back. In a matter of days, he'd have his Sharingan, and with it, he would once again become the shinobi that the five nations had feared.

"You will come back a successful, fully-functioning genin team," the Sandaime continued, peering down at them sternly, "or you will be disbanded."

That put paid to Naruto's enthusiastic cheering – the office went still and horrifyingly silent.

"You are dismissed. Be prepared to leave tomorrow morning."

Together, the three of them turned and shuffled into the hall, his teammates for once blissfully speechless. Still, if Sasuke hadn't been so consumed with the phantom taste of power on his lips, he might have noticed all the blood drain out of Sakura's face the moment the Hokage told them of their destination.

* * *

><p><em>Cause they took your loved ones<em>

_but returned them in exchange for you_

_but would you have it any other way?_

* * *

><p><strong>notes: so this one has been the most massive bitch to write. apologies, loved ones. I know this is probably not worth the wait I put you through. lyrics borrowed from <em>What the Water Gave Me <em>by Florence & the Machine.**

**notes2: I am obsessed with Florence and the Machine right now. Also if you're not watching _Game of Thrones, _you are doing life wrong. **

**notes3: ALSO I JUST GOT BACK FROM THE USA AND A WEEK OF NO INTERNET AND OH MY GOD LATEST CHAPTER ALL THE SCREECHING BECAUSE MY PRECIOUS BABY**

**OH MY GOD**

**HOLY SHIT MAN. ALL THE BEST STUFF HAPPENS WHEN I'M NOT LOOKING.**

**oh and if you could review that would be fantastic. let me know y'all still following this shindig...**


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